“What’s gonna happen when Russia gets drones? When China gets drones? When they start selling them drones to all the little countries around the world which we’re presently droning the shit out of?”

I mean, how weird is it that no one is pointing this out. . . even liberal hippies are just taking it for granted that USA is the only one who will ever have drones- our assumptions about American military supremacy so deep we can’t even question it.

But think about it – how long did we have the H-Bomb for, before Russia got it? Or the A-Bomb? How long did the Russians have that shit before China got one? How long did we have PONG before the Japanese invented Nintendo and then nobody bought American video games for 30 years?

Here’s another weird thing: even back in the George W. Bush days when no one really bothered to argue about policy (“If you criticize the COMMANDER IN CHIEF during WARTIME you are a TRAITOR TO MER’CUH!” remember that? Whatever happened to those people?)

But even in those days, you’d find military guys speaking out occasionally against our new “Torture Is Awesome” policy on the strategic (not moral) grounds that “When, not if, our soliders get taken prisoner in the future, if we torture, then our enemies will be more likely to torture US.”

When whatever borderline insane “freedom fighters” that we are presently funding to help us fight GWOT inevitably turn into Next Generation Super Wacko Gives No Fuck Al Queda and THEY get drones (that we sold them?!?!?). . . . what the fuck kind of new Homeland Security rules is the government going to impose to "keep us safe" from THAT shit?

We’re going to be nostalgic for the time we ONLY got our email read and our radioactive naked pictures taken at the airport.

10 Comments so far

Drone on drone warfare? Maybe thats not such a bad thing. I think this remains pretty unquestioned because the whole drone warfare operation remains largely unseen by the public, not to mention how detached and therefore unreal the whole thing is. I think that drones pale in comparison to nuclear weapons as a perceived threat by the American government/military, which I think is why military attention in afghanistan is moving into pakistan. Anyways I think the frontline videos surrounding this issue are surprisingly informative and extensive and you can watch them online for free, check it out.

Drones are so freaking expensive to buy, maintain and manoeuver that I doubt terrorist groups will have any go at it anytime soon. Big warfare nations have them already (USA, Israel, China, USSR (sorry, I meant Russia)).
Plus, you need to have taken air control before you can send any drone, most probably, which means regular bombers & jets to start with, if the other side has any aviation/anti-aircraft canons.

I think you're overblowing the effectiveness of Predator-style drones.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unmanned_aerial_vehicles
We don't need to worry about Russia and China getting drones because they already have them. Even Iran has some rudimentary ones.
If you're going to keep drones in the air for long-term surveilance and bombing, you need air superiority. The US can fly drones over Iraq and Afghanistan because they have military control there. They can fly drones over Jordan, Pakistan, and Syria without having to bombard their airfields and AA guns first because they have either formal or secret agreements with the governments there.

The only advantage drones have over manned aircraft is not having to worry about the pilot getting killed or fatigued. And Russia and China haven't historically been all that concerned about keeping their military casualties low during war. Drones are no less expensive than a manned aircraft built for the same function. So if you're worried about Russia or China sending 1,000 drones to attack the US, they can already do it more effectively with the manned air force they currently have. Russia and China will be better able to maintain their police states with their drones. But drones won't suddenly make them unstoppable if they decide to invade another country with a modern air force. And if they want to subjugate a smaller neighboring country, they already can without drones.
A long-range drone fitted with guided missiles is hard to obtain by anybody other than a large country, but you can build a short-range drone and strap a bomb onto with little money and parts. That's the real problem you should be concerned about. They're small, fast, and can get past ground checkpoints before anyone can respond. Perfect for terrorists and insurgents.
Someone in the US already attempted this with a remote-controlled WWII plane, but was arrested before he could pull it off.